On Monday, Israeli soldiers and border police officers invaded the Al-Arakib Bedouin village in the Negev and demolished it for the seventh time this year and the 218th time since 2010.
Media sources said several military and police vehicles surrounded the Bedouin village before storming it and forcing the families out of their dwellings.
They added that the soldiers and the police demolished the residential tents, sheds, and barns and displaced the Bedouin families for the seventh time this year.
It is worth mentioning that the village was destroyed on May 30, 2023, before the families rebuilt their sheds and tents. The village was demolished 15 times last year, in 2022, and 14 times in 2012.
Al-Arakib was first destroyed on July 27, 2010, as Israel refuses to recognize it, although it predates it.
Al-Arakib is a Palestinian village located to the north of the city of Beersheba in the Negev desert (southern Palestine). It was established for the first time during Ottoman rule.
It is one of the 51 Arab villages in the Negev that the Israeli government does not recognize, although they predate Israel.
The occupation authorities have worked since 1951 to expel its residents to control their lands through extensive house demolitions and the vast lands equivalent to two-thirds of historic Palestine.
Israeli bulldozers demolished the village on July 27, 2010; Israeli troops demolished all its homes and displaced hundreds of its residents under the pretext of building without a permit. The residents of the village built it again, to be demolished again and again.
The steadfastness of Al-Arakib became a symbol of the battle of wills waged by the Palestinians of the occupied interior, especially in the Negev, to survive and preserve land and identity.
About 240,000 Palestinians live in the Negev desert, half of whom live in villages and Bedouin camps, some of which have been in place for hundreds of years.
The Israeli occupation authorities do not recognize their ownership of the lands of these villages and communities, refuse to provide them with basic services such as water and electricity, and try by all means and methods to push the Palestinian Arabs to despair and frustration to uproot and displace them.
Article 17 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: ” 1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others. 2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
